DURING MY FIRST trip to Bali, in 2001, I was a fresh-out-of-college backpacker with a high tolerance for thin walls and humidity. When I arrived in Ubud, the arty jungle town in the center of the island, I discovered I could get a private room with a double bed, an outdoor shower and breakfast for $5 a night at one of the many homestays (homes-cum-hotels). The room I chose had a palm-thatched roof and hole-riddled mosquito netting around the bed. I remember the sounds best of all—the rain pelting the roof with unrelenting force, the roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing just before sunrise. I exulted in the exoticism. During my daily walks through the village, I’d peek into the smattering of upscale hotels, ones with pool bars and manicured pathways, and turn up my nose. “That isn’t the real Bali,” I thought to myself, as smug as only 22-year-olds can be. “Why shell out big bucks on a fake paradise when you can get so much for so little here?” I promised myself that, should I return, I wouldn’t succumb to such extravagance.
Until I did…